I havn't seen a Ferrari break down in the middle of the road... have you? I highly doubt a Toyota is more reliable than a Ferrari, the engineers take extreme care in assembling a Ferrari, same can't be said for a Toyota...

Also one would expect a Ferrari to last well over 10 years, vintage Ferrari cars costs a fortune, whereas Toyota cars tend to be turned into scrap metal.

Have you considered that the plastic casing is required? If you replace the W4 with a metal casing will definitely cause strong resonances, without the plastic dampening the reflected waves, it will be a nightmare to work with. Since you can't fit the contents of the W4 into MH1c, and you can't just fill the casing of the W4 solid, there is not much you can do to make it feel more durable.

a bit off topic but more expensive cars does not necessarily equal more reliable

but some instances, quality control is really bad- eg. the lower end ultimate ear iems are notorious for failing quickly

In that example it is, just watch a few videos on the Ferrari on the manufacturing process.

It's just all stats, given the large number of Toyota cars around a decent production process will yield a low failure rate, some % in 100,000 cars, but the number of Ferrari cars is no where in ballpark of the number of cars Toyota makes, therefore if 1 car has a defect, it significantly impacts on the failure rate. From a consumer point of view (a person that's going to buy 1 car) one would choose a well designed and put together car then an average off the long production line car, the difference is definitely there no matter how well you take care of it.

Ok, I had to jump in - I am relatively new to the world of nice headphones, but know a few things about cars. The statement that a Ferrari has the reliability of a Toyota had me laughing. Ferrari is like the Beats / Monster of the car world - lots of marketing and hype and believe me - they DO break down and in painfully expensive ways. Anyone here spend any time inside a Ferrari F40? no windows / no door handles in the traditional sense, bad seats, bad insulation. A lot of very expensive IEMs look like that to me - poorly built - I know they are made to sound good, but come on - at $600+ would it kill someone to make a "good looking" set?